Berlin’s reputation as hip, ‘sexy’ city undermined as embattled mayor to step down

Berlin’s reputation as the coolest city on the planet owes a lot to the vision of Mayor Klaus Wowereit.

Germany’s first openly gay leader coined the “poor but sexy” tag that has helped make the capital a top tourist attraction.

Today, Berlin is a hipster mecca, with its mix of edgy nightclubs, cosy bars and alluring boutiques. It’s also affordable, compared with the nosebleed prices in Paris and London.

“It’s good that the city has internationalized itself, but it’s also as important that the city remains livable,” the Social Democrat mayor said Tuesday as he announced he would step down in December.

Mr. Wowereit, 61, who still had two more years in office, says continued speculation over his future amid his plummeting popularity had made it difficult to govern.

“This decision was not easy for me,” said the man who was once considered a rival to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I go voluntarily and I am proud of my contribution to the positive development of this city.”

Though Mr. Wowereit has presided over a renaissance in Berlin’s fortunes, his reputation been tarnished by problems with the city’s new airport. The mayor, who is head of the airport’s supervisory council, was a key promoter of the project, pushing through the plan despite local resistance.

The Brandenburg-Willy Brandt International Airport was supposed to be a showcase for German engineering and efficiency. But it has turned into a billion-dollar boondoggle, with no end in sight.

Safety inspectors found a long list of problems, ranging from an insufficient fire safety system to cracks in the tile floors. Meanwhile taxpayers are on the hook for $29-million a month for cleaning, heating and lighting — more than the still-operational Tegel Airport.

Although it was due to open in 2010, the date has been pushed back at least five times. Now, no one is speculating when it might open. Confusingly, instructions on how to reach it are posted on the subway.

This year, auditors from Brussels who contributed $43-million to the project began looking at how the money was spent, Der Spiegel reported.

They found several eyebrow-raising items, such as a plan to create elevated parking spaces for Mr. Wowereit and his VIP guests so they could have easier access to gates. Cost: $820,000.

In another fiscal blow, city planners discovered last year there were 180,000 fewer people living in Berlin than expected. This will lead to a $680-million shortfall in revenue.

To make up the difference, they raised the property transfer tax. Although this wasn’t by much — only a one-percentage increase — it was embarrassing and led to complaints Berliners were being priced out of their own city.

But that’s not the end of it. Now, $1.4-billion of tax money distributed to Berlin as part of Germany’s equalization payments scheme from wealthier states to the poorer ones, has to be repaid.

Despite such blunders, Mr. Wowereit’s legacy is on the plus side.

On his watch, Berlin has morphed from the shabby, divided relic of the Cold War into a vibrant international city and home again to the German government. This has led to a building boom, spearheaded by the reconstruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, with its glittering dome.

Much of the credit must go to the mayor, who realized Berlin had to reinvent itself.

“The banks aren’t coming from Frankfurt,” he told The New York Times in 2006. “They’re going to London. Volkswagen is not going to build a factory here. They’re building new factories in Eastern Europe or Asia.”

The only solution, he said, is for Berlin to play to its strengths as a swinging town, a magnet for culture and tourism.

“This is the place to be at the moment, even more than London,” he said.

The mayor himself has experienced a similar journey. He was born in 1953 in the working-class Tempelhof district in a divided Berlin, still struggling to recover from the devastation of the Second World War.

His mother was a single mum with five children, and he became the first person in his family to go to college. He studied law and once dreamed of becoming a judge.

But after joining the Social Democrats, Mr. Wowereit burrowed into municipal politics. In 1984, he became the youngest member of Berlin’s city council. His hero is Mr. Brandt, the West Berlin mayor who later became chancellor and forged historic ties to East Germany in the 1970s.

Gregor Gysi, the National Left Party leader and former coalition partner, said while Mr. Wowereit leaves the airport debacle and other issues, he should also be given credit for an “important chapter in the development of Berlin.”

“He had a big role in ensuring that the German capital has become a metropolis … It was also to Klaus Wowereit’s great credit that he was the first politician to openly declare his homosexuality.”